Retrograde Amnesia
by KaetheCelt
Summary: And that was when Alice knew that the something which she had forgotten was something which she absolutely had to remember.
1. So Far

A/N: It had to get out of my head. I was going mad.

* * *

There was something she had to remember.

Something which she had forgotten, and had to be recalled quickly, lest she forget to remember entirely. But sometimes she felt that if she remembered, she would want to forget, and would then suddenly be wishing that she remembered to forget.

So whenever she felt like there was something she had to remember – which was often – she did more work. After all, the only things she could be forgetting were things to do with work, weren't they?

So she went over the accounts twice, thrice, four times and more, hammered out the details of minor things usually left to someone of less status than herself, insisted on being a physical part of every venture, and inspected every type of item they were importing. Her name was attached to this company now, and it wouldn't do for someone to be less than happy with its work. She even looked over the trifles they were exporting. In fact, she was one of the very few people who seemed to bother with basing their trade off of mutual appreciation, instead of military might.

Luckily, one of the others was Lord Ascot.

Strangely enough, by actually caring for the people they did business with, they had made quite a few enemies back home in England. It seemed as if when people were respected, they were more willingly to trade, making Ascot and Kingsleigh one of the most successful pairs in the entire company. The success one incurs, of course, is directly proportional to the amount of jealousy one incurs. So Ascot and Kingsleigh looked after each other, voicing suspicions in private about new investors, confiding private intuition about such-and-such proposed plans, and overall remained as best of friends that an old man and young woman could be.

Ascot was very glad that he didn't have to warn her against the numerous ladder-climbing suitors that proposed to her. After her initial success in China, these entrepreneurial young men came in droves. After his son, however, she never needed twenty minute "moments." In fact, she never even need twenty second moments. She would barely look at the hopeful man before gracing him with a smile and shaking her head.

Her family, of course, worried. But Ascot decided he would be far more worried if she ever decided to take up one of these depressing prospects. So life continued in a pleasant way for them. They spent the majority of their time in China, of course, but they had also ventured out into the Pacific Islands, Korea, Southeast Asia, and India.

It was as they were heading back to England after a trip to India several weeks longer than anticipated that Alice suggested a new venture which would unknowingly change their lives forever.

"You know," she said, cooling herself from the murderous heat with an exquisite Chinese fan. "We seem to always find ourselves in incredibly hot places."

"Indeed," he replied from across the table where they were taking their tea iced. "I never thought I would long for a good English winter."

"Does it have to be an English winter?" she asked, grinning as she brought the chipped cup to her lips. He suddenly saw that very familiar spark in her eyes, the one that he couldn't possibly ever say no to, and found himself laughing.

"Well, I suppose not," he chuckled. "What were you thinking, my dear?"

"Scandinavian furs," she replied, after sipping her tea. "Though I certainly can't picture wearing any right about now, I'm sure our friends experiencing the good English winter would very much appreciate some."

"You're right, of course," he sighed. "Though I was looking forward to a bit of a vacation."

"It won't be nearly as long as our other trips, and the return trip home should be substantially shorter," she argued. "We can leave as soon as we unload, and be home before Christmas."

"Very well," he yawned. "But this is your venture, and so you have to do all the preparation work this time."

"Like I haven't been for the past six years?" Alice teased.

He smiled at her, and wished for the millionth time that he had been blessed with such a daughter.

To Scandinavia it was.

* * *

Norway was a very pleasant country, really. The people were friendly and generous, the furs were warm and plentiful, and at the time, Ascot even quite liked the climate. The lack of sunlight could be rather depressing if one lived there all year round, he supposed, but it didn't bother him just then. That was, of course, until they started sailing home.

Alice was going to be right. She usually was, that precocious child – _woman_, he corrected himself mentally – and they were right on track to be home for Christmas. He figured that if any of them had really thought about it at the time, sailing so far north in December probably wouldn't have been a great idea. But after sailing around the Cape of Good Hope, through the monsoons of India, and threading through the islands of the south Pacific, the North Sea didn't seem so threatening.

Caught in the midst of horrible storm a day off the coast of Bergen, however, the sea seemed very threatening indeed. He was below deck, looking out from the porthole to waves twice the size of their ship, hearing the shouts of the desperate captain and frightened sailors from above. Alice, of course, was itching to go up and take a look, and it was all Ascot could do to convince her that she'd just be a nuisance, let alone in danger, if she went up there.

"Look, you can see from here. I hope we don't wind up halfway to Iceland at this rate," he said, moving to let her look out the porthole.

"Iceland?" she asked, perking up suddenly.

"No, Alice," he said, frowning. "We've done quite enough this year. We're not sailing again until spring."

She sighed, and barely glanced out the porthole before sitting back done. "Another Season in town. Wonderful."

"You did manage to escape last year by wintering in Hong Kong, remember?" he reminded her.

She frowned suddenly. "Did I forget something?"

"No," he said again, sighing as well. "You never forget anything, though you always think you do. Provided we get to London in one piece, everything's all in order."

"What if we got to London in two pieces? You first, and then I'll come once the Season's over," she joked.

"In which case maybe three would be better: the cargo, then me, and then you, for I'd much rather stay home as well. You know that," he replied. She nodded, and opened her mouth to reply when the door swung open to reveal a soaked-to-the-bone sailor.

"Begging your pardon, sir, ma'am, but the captain asked me to come and respectfully request a reroute due straight east, instead of us following this storm, which seems to be headed in the same southernly direction as us right now," he said.

"Of course, whatever the captain thinks is best," Ascot agreed quickly. "And wait it out for several days before returning over sea?"

Alice almost laughed at the older man. He was completely immune to seasickness, but felt every bump in every carriage ride he ever took.

"We're not sure, sir," the young man said apologetically. "We're not sure what shape the ship is in yet, which is why we want to dock up north before spending more time at sea."

"Tell the captain he may use his own discretion in all matters," Ascot replied. "Thank you."

"I haven't ever been to Scotland," Alice said once their messenger had left.

"So you get your wish of another adventure after all," her partner laughed.

"Maybe you and the cargo will arrive back first, while I explore the countryside on the way home," she suggested.

"Conveniently missing half of the social events on the way? Your mother will have a fit," he told her.

She shrugged. "She's used to it by now."

He privately agreed, but refused to comment on the topic anymore. Instead, he continued to play his fatherly role, and suggested she get some sleep while she could.

* * *

It was always the same dream.

It had been years since she called it a nightmare, and for awhile she even looked forward to going to sleep precisely to see her "friends," the blue caterpillar, the white rabbit, the grinning cat, the twins, the hare, the mouse, the bloodhound, the woman in white, and above all, the strange man in a hat.

But recently, the dream changed.

It wasn't so recently, perhaps merely a year or two ago, but it was recent enough in her twenty-five year old life for her to still be puzzled by it. Instead of happy greetings and tea parties, she found them locked behind bars, strung up in chains, on their way to execution by a woman madder than all of them put together. She tried to save them, but nothing she could do helped. In fact, they didn't even see her anymore. It was like she was a ghost in her own dream. In the morning she would wake up in a cold sweat, her tears not out of fright, but out of helplessness.

Sometimes she debated about confiding in Lord Ascot, asking his opinion on the change. But she never did. The dream was hers, somehow, and talking about it would be tantamount to giving it away. There wasn't much she hid from her mentor and partner, but this was too important to lay out in the open. Besides, Alice felt that if she could just remember whatever it was she had forgotten, she would know how to fix the dream, and maybe she could wake up happy again.

That particular night, it changed again.

"Let them go!" she cried to the card-knights who were torturing her friends. She tried to fight them off, but she passed through them as easily as if she was a ghost. They didn't notice her at all.

A cry of pain behind her found her staring at the dormouse, who was valiantly trying not to scream as a horrible looking man slowly cut her tail off millimeter by millimeter with a hot knife.

"Alice," she gasped, and Alice, shocked at even being seen, ran to her.

"Mally!" she found herself crying out. "What have they done to you? Where is Mirana?"

"Alice is not here, you pitiful excuse for a rodent," the one-eyed man laughed. "Your champion abandoned you, remember?"

Remember? There was something she had to remember…

"Alice!" the dormouse shrieked as she started to fade away.

She was waking up, wasn't she? Because what was it she couldn't forget…?

"Alice, find the Hatter! He can fix this, Alice, please…"

"So you do know where he is?" the man roared, and the last thing scene before she woke up was the dormouse's tail completely severed, and a high-pitched wail of pain.

"Alice, Alice…"

She was crying. She was helpless. Her face was wet like it was every morning, but why could she still hear the mouse's voice? The mouse… what had she called her? Ma…Mal…Mel…It began with the letter M…

"Alice, wake up, dear. We're here."

Here? Where was here? She opened her eyes to find Ascot standing over her, then remembered the conversation from last night. She sat up and sniffed, wiping at her eyes futilely.

"What's wrong?" he asked concerned. "I thought you were excited to be seeing the one country you haven't yet."

She managed a weak smile, and shook her head. "Bad dream," she explained. "Let me throw a dress on and I'll be out in a moment."

"I'll meet you on land. Captain says we're going to be here for two or three days while they fix the ship up, and I think we should take opportunity to meet with the locals."

"You mean buy everything they have worth selling," she translated, and he laughed before walking out to give her privacy.

True to her word, she threw on a dress, nothing underneath but her chemise and knickers, and slipped on shoes without stockings or socks. She ran a brush through her hair, but left it down, and merely splashed some water on her face before running outside. She took a deep breath of the salty ocean breeze, and was pleased to look out on the land before her.

"Heading to shore?" one of the _Wonder_'s crew who had been with her since her first voyage called. She nodded, and he pointed down to the figures of Ascot and several others on the ground. She quickly flew down the gangway to join them.

"Ah, Alice!" Ascot said happily. "Allow me to introduce you. Apparently hearing that an English merchant ship has been temporarily forced to dock here is wonderful news for this village!"

"We're hoping you could trade with us directly here, instead of us having to go through the middleman and pay exorbitantly, as isolated northern villages often tend to have to," said one of the two men in front of her, wearing a kilt and woolen socks with his white shirt and black jacket.

"This is the town tailor, Mr. Gordon Walker," Ascot said, and Alice curtsied lightly.

"Mr. Walker," she said.

"Miss Kingsleigh," he replied, bowing slightly.

"And this is the town hatter, Mr. Tarrant Hightopp," Ascot continued, and Alice turned to greet the other man. Though he and Walker were nearly identical in dress, Hightopp's tartan was slightly different, and he wore a rather strange top hat on his head. And whereas Walker had dark hair and blue eyes with freckles, Hightopp's hair was the most stunning orange, eyes the purest green, and pale skin completely untouched.

In fact, he seemed so familiar…

"Miss Kingsleigh," he bowed, and their eyes met. She completely forgot to curtsey.

"Have-have we met?" she asked.

"I was going to ask you a similar question," he replied, looking at her with the same curiosity that she was sure she was looking at him with.

"I've never been to Scotland before," she said. "But do you travel? Perhaps we've seen each other in India, or China, or Korea, or…"

"No," he cut her off. "I don't travel."

They stared at each other, both completely bewildered.

And that was when Alice knew that the something which she had forgotten was something which she absolutely had to remember.


	2. What the Dormouse Said

A/N: This'll be a rather short story. Ten chapters at the most. If I make it any longer than that, I'll lose my head.

* * *

Ascot was scribbling some figures at the desk in his room in the little inn they were staying at when he heard the door open.

"They brought this to my room," Alice explained, bringing one of his bags in.

"I was looking for that earlier," he said. "Thanks."

"Still working?" she teased, shutting the door behind her.

"I'm surprised you're not," he said, putting his quill down for the moment. "I would think speaking with the tailor and hatter earlier would have inspired you."

"It did," she admitted, sighing as she plopped down on the bed. "It just seems like there's so much to do. We promised the Norwegians that we'd come back next year, we're due back in China in June, and then we need to somehow fit a return to Indonesia in there before we're done, and you know we need to get to Japan soon, or every other company in every other Western country is going to have a foothold there before us, and - "

"Usually when you're under this kind of stress you flourish, Alice," Ascot said, concerned. "What's really bothering you?"

Alice let out another heavy sigh. "Don't you ever wonder if there's something more? I mean, I love seeing all these countries and exploring the world, of course. I can't imagine not doing it. But sometimes I wonder…"

There it was. He knew it was going to happen sooner or later, and had dreaded the day ever since he had first taken her on as an apprentice. It would mean the end of his hopes, the end of his dreams for the company, the end of everything.

Alice Kingsleigh wanted to settle down.

"I'm sure a Season home will make everything clearer," he said, with an ache in his chest. She'd settle for a man who didn't deserve her at all, and leave him and the company – which did deserve her, if nothing else – all the poorer for it.

She snorted, very unlady-like. "As if a Season could ever do anything for me. Why don't you let me stay here?"

He raised his eyebrows, and she grinned slightly. "Not forever, of course. Just a week or so. Time enough to set up trade with this little town properly and not rushed because you're so desperate to get back to London? I won't be too long."

"But I thought you said we had far too much to do," he argued.

"We do. But have you seen Mr. Hightopp's hats? All the ladies in London would quite die for one."

"We cannot set up an entire trading route based on one tailor's need for fur and one hatter's need to sell his product," he pointed out. She shrugged.

"It doesn't need to be a full route. We promised the Norwegians we'd come back next year, wouldn't we? So on the way back we stop here, drop off some fur, pick up some hats and other nonsense they wish us to bring south, and sell it just in time for the Season."

"You're right, of course," he sighed, Alice's ideas always wining him over. "The Captain said we'll be ready to sail tomorrow night. How much longer do you need after that?"

"I can find a carriage for myself, so don't worry about it. I'll be home for New Year's," she said, jumping up from the bed and heading to the door.

"Do make an effort to come and say goodbye to me tomorrow evening, won't you?" he called as she opened the door.

"Of course," she said, smiling sweetly. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," he replied, and when he heard the door click shut, he turned back to his figures.

* * *

Alice was dreaming again.

"Mallymkun?" she called into the darkness. "Where are you?"

"Alice," called a weak voice.

"She's hallucinating again," a second, more nervous voice pointed out. "She won't last long without medicine."

"She's there," Mally argued, but rather ineffectively as a dehabilitating cough racked her tiny frame.

"No, she's not. She's not coming back."

"Just because you weren't the one sent to get her this time, McTwisp? Are you doubting our hatter?" a third voice asked.

"Mirana?" Alice wondered, running through the darkness to get to the voices.

"She's asking for you, your majesty," Mally coughed.

"Humans can't go into Overland!"

"I'm a human!" Alice argued. "Why can't I be in Overland?"

But no one heard her but the dying dormouse.

"It's no use," Mally told her. "Alice, please. We need you."

"Why have they done this to you?" Alice cried, staring at the bloody, chained form of the tortured mouse. Every voice was coming from what looked like a separate cell, but she could only see the birdcage that Mally was being kept in.

"You must find the hatter," she replied. "He's supposed to find you, but McTwisp says he won't."

"He will!" the queen insisted. "He must!"

"He must, because if he doesn't it'll be off with our heads!" the rabbit exclaimed. "But he won't because humans can't!"

"Humans can!" Alice insisted. "How can I find him? How can I help?"

"Find the hatter," Mally repeated. "He knows how to get you here again."

"Not anymore he doesn't! With all due respect, your majesty, that was a terrible plan."

"Shut it, McTwisp," Alice said, more to herself since she knew he couldn't hear her. "What happened?"

"Find the hatter," Mally repeated.

"This plan is absolutely mad," the rabbit muttered.

Just then the door opened with a loud bang. She jumped, and turned to see the Red Knave walk in. She gasped. "But he can't possibly be - "

"Has anyone decided to talk yet?" he asked to the dungeon at large. He was met with a silence, broken only by the whimpering of terrified creatures.

"No one? Very well, then. Who's next?"

The light glinted off the knife he took from his belt, and Alice gasped at the implication.

"Now, remember," he said, coming up to one of the cells. "This can stop whenever one of you wants to tell me where Alice is."

"I'm right here!" Alice screamed suddenly, realizing that Mally was tortured for her whereabouts, and more of her friends were about to be as well. "I'm right here!" she screamed, attempting to beat the knave but simply falling right through him.

"I'm right here!" she screamed, over and over again. "Let them go! I'm right here! You bloody coward! I'm right here! Fight me instead!"

She was crying again, and usually when she felt her tears it meant she would be waking up soon. "No, no! Stayne! I'm right here!" she shrieked, desperate to get his attention before she disappeared and left her friends to their mercy. "I'm right here!"

"I'm right here…right here…right…"

Where was she? She was forgetting again. Who was hurt? What was going on? She needed to stop someone from doing something, and she need to find…someone…something…

She woke up screaming, and called it a nightmare for the first time in years.

* * *

The view from this coastal town was really quite nice, she noted, wrapped in a warm shawl, sitting on a rock on a cliff looking out into the sea. It could almost clear out the horror her unremembered nightmare had etched in her heart. She couldn't remember why she had woke up screaming, and was trying to piece together what fragments she could. She sniffed, disliking crying even at this ungodly early hour and a good ways out of town.

It was madness, being so disturbed over a dream.

It would be a miracle if she could ever have normal dreams.

It was Melum…Milli..Or Mc…Mac…Or was it Mer…Mar…?

"Ah, you've discovered my spot," a voice said, forcibly pulled her from her musings. She jumped, and turned around to discover the town hatter – the hatter? – approaching.

"Your spot?" she asked.

"It's a good place for remembering," he said. "I come here every morning. May I join you?"

"Well, I suppose I can't very well say no, if it is truly your spot," Alice said, moving over slightly. He sat on the grass next to her rock and looked out over the sea. The sun had not yet risen, nor was it due to for a few hours.

"What are you trying to remember?" Alice asked.

"A great many things," he shrugged. "What are you trying to remember?"

She frowned, and wondered if her musings counted as remembering. "I'm pondering things that begin with the letter M," she said.

"That sounds quite fun," he told her. "I do that quite often."

"What do you come up with?" she asked.

"Well, there's a great many things that begin with the letter M," he began. "Morning, malady, memory…"

"Memory?"

"I'm afraid I don't know much about memory. Ah, there's another one!"

"Much?"

"Much, mad, miracle, mouse - "

"Mouse!" Alice exclaimed.

"That was what you were trying to remember?" Tarrant asked, raising an eyebrow.

"One of them, maybe."

"Are there many?"

"More than you would think."

"Marvelous! I could do this all day."

Alice laughed then, a loud, hearty laugh that chased away the last of the anxiety about her nightmare. The hatter looked quite pleased with himself, and when she had finished her laughter, asked why she was trying to remember things that began with an M.

"It seems important," she frowned. "But I think it might be a name with an M I need."

"Mouse isn't a name," he pointed out. "But if you're looking for names with an M, this is a pretty good town for it."

"You're name doesn't begin with an M," she said.

"I'm not from here," he explained.

"You're not?" she asked. "Where are you from?

"That's what I'm trying to remember," he sighed. "It was only about a year ago when Walker found me wandering across the Scottish countryside, knowledge of nothing but my name and how to hat."

"But that's terrible!" she exclaimed, feeling a sharp stab of pity in her heart. "You haven't found your family or know where you're from, or anything like that at all?"

"For some reason, I feel like I have no family," he said, feeling the memory of family even more distant than the memory of himself. "As if they've all passed on, and I'm the only one left. And as if I have a mission to complete. But I can't remember for the life of me. I've been trying to remember for so long, but so far nothing has come back. Until you came, of course. You're the only one I've ever come close to 'recognizing.' You can't remember anywhere where you might have seen me?"

She shook her head sadly. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Hightopp."

"Please, call me Tarrant," he sighed.

"I can try to help you remember, though," she said hopefully. "I'm staying here for awhile after our ship leaves. Maybe when I remember the names with an M, I can remember where I know you from."

"Do you forget things a lot?" he asked.

"Not often. Just something important," she said, unsure as to how to explain the Important Thing.  
"Do you ever remember things here?"

"Sometimes," he shrugged. "Nothing big, but small things like how to make a certain type of tea, or bizarre dances."

"Like the quadrille?" she giggled.

He laughed, but shook his head. "No, like the…" he struggled, unsure as to how _futterwacken _would sound to a lady, and unwilling to demonstrate at the moment. He was feeling far too melancholy. "I don't know. I'll show you on the day we remember."

"Okay. That's a deal. I'm holding you to it," she told him seriously.

"Of course, Miss Kingsleigh."

"Alice," she told him, and he grinned.

"Alice," he repeated, and it sounded so familiar that he thought perhaps he had actually remembered something today after all. But how could one remember a name that was already known? That couldn't be remembering, could it? But then the thought occurred to them both at the same time:

Her name did sound particularly _right_ when it came from his lips.

She smiled a shy smile at him, and they both turned to stare at the horizon for a little while longer.


	3. So Much to Gain

A/N: Chapter titles are taken from the lyrics in "Alice's Theme" on the soundtrack.

* * *

When Alice had woken up that morning, she certainly did not plan to spend the entire day with Tarrant Hightopp. But that was, in fact, exactly what she did. They had spent the morning on their Memory Cliff, and just after the sun had risen, their stomachs rumbled simultaneously. He showed her a nice place to have lunch, and as it had often come up in their morning discussion, she requested to see his hats. And so after lunch, they toured his workshop, which of course brought up the subject of trade again, and so he introduced her to several other of the townsfolk who would be interested in exporting their wares to London. Walker had given her and Ascot a tour of the town yesterday, but Tarrant gave her another one, including some funny, personal anecdotes about each place. He introduced her to everyone they passed by, and when it started to rain, he brought her back to his house to wait it out. Since it was nearing tea-time, they took tea in his kitchen, and Alice could have sworn that the particular tea he gave her was quite familiar, and it bordered on the edge of the Important Thing that Must be Remembered. She mentioned so to him, and he smiled.

"I hope you don't mind my monopolizing your company this way, but the way you feel about my tea must be the way I feel about you."

"Pardon?" she asked, confused.

"You help me remember. Or, not remember per se, but at least feel as if it's not so bad that I forgot," he explained.

She nodded. "I had thought I was mad. That I hadn't actually forgotten anything, and was just being silly."

"Well," he grinned. "I would hazard to say that you are quite mad. But I doubt the forgetting has anything to do with it."

And when they discussed madness, something began to pull at Alice's heartstrings. It was so familiar… Why on earth couldn't she place it?

She stood up to help the hatter – the hatter? Why was there something she needed to… - clean up after tea, when he shook his head sharply.

"Leave it."

"Don't think I'm leaving this mess for you to clean all by yourself!" she exclaimed. "I wanted you to come with me to go see old Ascot off, and we'll never make it if I sit here idle."

"No, no, it's just I…Er, I rather like dirty tea things lying around," he explained awkwardly. "I'll clean it eventually, but isn't it so nice, that someone cared enough about the cups to use them?"

"Yes, I suppose," she said, thinking on it. "I should very much hate to be an un-used tea cup, gathering dust in a cabinet."

"If you'd like, we can have dinner here later, and you can help me clean then, if you insist," he offered.

She smiled. "I'd like that very much."

"Now, don't we have a ship to be seeing off?" he asked, offering his arm.

"Indeed we do," she replied, taking it and walking out the door toward the docks.

* * *

Ascot didn't worry that much. In fact, in his youth, he was rather carefree. But somehow the aging process seems to have added worries as it took away his hair.

And his primary worry was Alice.

When she came striding up to the _Wonder_ arm-in-arm with the hatter, he did a double take. That was his Alice, alright, but there was something different about her. She looked…happy.

Not that she usually looked sad, but there was an unadulterated joy on her face that Ascot hadn't seen since their first trip to China.

"Alice!" he called, waving down to her.

"Hello!" she waved back.

"Mr. Hightopp," he acknowledged.

"Lord Ascot," the hatter bowed his head.

"Take good care of her," Ascot found himself saying, and as soon as he realized it, waited for the harsh rebuttal from Alice. 'I can take care of myself!' she told him time and time again, and he closed his eyes, waiting to hear it.

"If the lady will allow me, I'll escort her home to London myself," the hatter promised.

And when Ascot opened his eyes, and Alice still wasn't protesting, he really started to worry. Instead she looked at the hatter rather peculiarly, and a slight blush tinged her cheeks when she looked back up at Ascot. He had seen that look before, but he had never, ever in all his years, seen it on Alice.

Helen would kill him if he let her daughter elope with some hatter from the Scottish backwaters.

He had a brief, flighty impulse to insist she get on the ship right now, cut off all trade with this town, and never come here again. But she was a grown woman, he had to remind himself, able to make her own choices.

"I'll see you in no time, then?" he managed to get out.

"We'll probably head out in a few days," Alice replied, unsure as to how she wound up agreeing to an escort.

"Very well," Ascot replied, seeing that he could do nothing else. Hightopp seemed like a decent enough fellow, at least. Very strange, no doubt, but decent.

Alice blew him a kiss from the shore, and he laughed, waving back.

"Goodbye!" he called.

"Goodbye!" they called back, and the blue butterfly that seemed to follow the ship to the ends of the world suddenly flew up in front of him. He stared at it for a minute, positive that it was trying to tell him something, but then it left, flying back down towards the shore, ultimately to land on Alice's shoulder.

Tarrant looked pleasantly surprised, and asked Alice something that Ascot couldn't quite catch. She giggled – Alice giggle? – and whispered something back to him. They turned around, and began to head back towards the town, butterfly never leaving her shoulder.

That was when he understood that it had never followed the ship to the ends of the earth. It had followed Alice.

* * *

Tarrant even came with Alice back to her room at the inn to be a reference while she worked on her paperwork. He gave her all the official facts and figures she needed to add the town into their winter route, along with estimates of the quantities not only of what they would need for imports, but also what the company could expect to export from there. They worked so well together that Alice had actually finished all of the work that she expected to take the week doing that night. When she mentioned her surprise to Tarrant, he suggested that she use the extra time to have dinner with several of the officials and see if they had any more ideas than what the tailor and the hatter, and a jeweler and blacksmith that they had talked to the day before had.

Alice mentioned that she would be having tea with them tomorrow, and asked for Tarrant to accompany her. This of course brought the dirty tea things, and so they returned to his house for dinner.

Tarrant Hightopp could not only make some amazing tea, but he also made a mean stew.

"Mm," she moaned in appreciation after they had cleaned up and sat down for dinner. "This is incredible."

He frowned. "I wish I could have made something better, but I didn't have time to get - "

"Are you mad?" she asked. "This is perfect. Don't change a thing. You have to teach me. I'm afraid I'm a horrible cook."

"I hardly see that being a problem. You usually eat on board the ship and in foreign countries where you wouldn't even begin to know how to ask for the right ingredients, anyway," he pointed out.

"I do go home sometimes, you know."

"I thought you stayed with your mother when you went to London?" he asked, drawing on some of their earlier conversations.

"Yes, of course I do. There's no sense in keeping my own residence for five months every other year when I'd just be with my family all the time anyway," she said sensibly.

"Then you don't have to cook for anyone, now do you?"

She frowned. "I suppose not. Although," she paused and laughed slightly at the memory. "Lord Ascot's son – Hamish – apparently has some nasty indigestion problems. Lady Ascot kept trying to tell me what I was supposed to be feeding him when we thought I was going to marry him."

"You-you were going to get married?" he spluttered, completely missing the point of the story.

"Well, yes. Most girls do tend to, you know," she laughed. "Or is no one married where you come from?"

"But you're…You're _Alice,_" he said. "I can't even picture you with another…"

"I obviously decided against it," she told him, unsure what the problem was. "I can't picture myself married, either. But most women do get married, Tarrant."

"Most men, too," he reminded her.

"Then why aren't you married?" she teased.

"I might be," he said solemnly, and she instantly felt terrible.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I - "

"No, don't be. I'm probably not. You think I'd remember something as important as a wife," he said, almost logically.

"Or a child," she mentioned, thought coming to her suddenly.

"I definitely don't have a child," he insisted. "There's no way you can forget something like that, even if you are mad."

"What if you never remember?" she asked. "Would you continue with your life here? Marry and have children in this town?"

"Maybe," he smiled. "I like the idea of children. They're so much fun, aren't they?"

"I still feel like a child sometimes," she laughed.

"Maybe you are," he said. "Maybe that's why you forget. Because you're actually only a child; you're just stuck in a woman's body."

"And are you still a child too?" she taunted.

"We're all children!" he decided suddenly. "Who wants to grow up, anyway? It's too boring."

"Full of stuffy old snobs," she agreed.

"You're not a stuffy old snob," he informed her quite seriously.

"I should hope not!" she exclaimed.

"Am I a stuffy old snob?" he asked, horrified at the prospect.

"Never," she assured him."Some people are, though."

"Tell me about them," he said. "And I will strive to be their opposite in every possible way."

"Well," Alice found herself giggling again, thinking of several of her business associates in London. "There's different degrees of stuffiness you know…"

And they spent the rest of dinner talking about how to be the opposite of a proper London businessman, and conjured a rather pleasing image that took them through the night happily.

* * *

The dream was evolving.

"I found him!" Alice cried, running through the dark halls. "What do I do now?"

She slowed, looking around her, unable to see anything.

"Mally?" She walked to her right, trying to remember where the voices had come from.

"Mirana?" Where did everyone go? Why was it so dark?

"McTwisp?"

"MURDER!" screamed a voice suddenly from behind her. Alice jumped, taken off her guard, and quickly turned around to see what it was.

"You murderer!" the voice repeated.

"I didn't kill anyone!" Alice argued, but a deeper, more masculine voice spoke over her.

"Shut up, you moron. She's not dead yet."

"Stayne?" she asked.

"What did you do to her?" the voice asked, sounding incredibly shaking.

"You saw very well what I did to her, and what I'll to do you if you don't shut up," Stayne replied, and the lack of light was causing Alice increasing frustration.

"Where are you going? Get back here! Where is she? Come back, you coward!" the voice screamed as Stayne's footsteps.

"Calm yourself, Uilleam. The Dormouse is alive, but barely," the Cheshire Cat said, appearing suddenly as soon as the door slammed behind Stayne.

"Chess?" Alice asked, as he was the only one she could see.

"Alice?" the cat said, turning around in disbelief.

"Are you mad, Chess?" Uilleam asked.

"Is it really you?" Chessur asked, amazement.

"I'm the right Alice," she confirmed. "What happened? Where is everyone? Why can't they all see me?"

"Where's Tarrant?" he asked. "Why isn't he with you?"

"Don't tell me you've gone off the deep end, too," the Dodo sighed. "Mally was hallucinating earlier, too."

"He was just here," Alice said, confused. She turned around to look for him. "Tarrant?"

"You must hurry," he said. "The Red Queen…"

"The Re Queen?" she repeated. "What happened? Isn't she in the Outlands?"

Chess's mouth was still moving, but Alice couldn't hear anything that was coming out of it.

"Chess?" she asked. "I can't hear you, Chess. What's wrong? What happened? You have to tell me! Chessur…"

But it was too late. She woke up crying again, and flew off to the cliff as soon as she realized that she couldn't remember.


	4. So Near

A/N: Finally things begin to happen, eh?

* * *

Alice wasn't the only one who dreamed.

But while she dreamt in sadness, Tarrant dreamt in madness.

"What's taking you so long?" Mirana cried.

"I found her, your majesty!" he said proudly. "We'll be home soon, I promise."

"It's too late," McTwisp frowned. "You're dreaming, Tarrant. You don't actually know any of this."

"How can we see him if he's dreaming?" the queen asked her messenger.

"Because we believe he's here, obviously."

"Then maybe Mallymkun really saw Alice!" she said hopefully.

"I told you I found her! We just need to figure out how to get back," the hatter informed them.

"You won't get back, you fool. Your majesty, I told you: Absolem's been following Alice for years. She hasn't remembered yet and never will," the rabbit sighed.

That made the hatter angrier than it should have.

"I'll make her remember," he growled. "Underland needs its champion."

"You can't do anything! You're useless in Overland, like all humans!" said the messenger. "Our only hope is for Absolem to lead her down the rabbit hole. Or even Chess."

"She's nowhere near the rabbit hole!" Tarrant yelled. "This was our only option! Were we to wait years hoping that maybe, one day, eventually perhaps, she might, in time, stumble upon a fucking hole in the ground?"

"Tarrant," the queen warned, watching his eyes carefully.

"It would have been better than losing you!" Nivens cried. "Now we have no queen, no champion, and no general! We have nothing! If you were here, we might at least have a modest rebellion on our hands! Instead, we have the dreams of an imprisoned woman, the hallucinations of a dying dormouse, and an evaporating cat! How can we rise with that?"

"McTwisp," Mirana began to intervene, but the hatter was already gone. He roared in anger, lunging towards the frightened rabbit, but unable to get to him through the cell bars.

"We can do nothing without Alice!" was the only coherent sentence they heard out of him. The rest was a smothering of curses, Outlandish, and pure fury.

"No," Nivens argued, safe behind the bars. "You can do nothing without Alice. You've sacrificed all of Underland because you're in love with the girl! You chose her over us."

Tarrant's orange eyes flashed, and as the Madness began to take over, he started to drift.

"Stay with us," Mirana said softly, trying to gently call him back. But at this point both of them knew that in the same way Alice's tears woke her, the hatter's madness woke him.

Mornings dawned daily for Tarrant Hightopp in a murderous rage.

* * *

They didn't plan on meeting at the cliff again that morning, but somehow Alice's feet brought her there, and sitting down on the grass to finish her cry seemed like a very good idea. And in his fury Tarrant wasn't sure where he was headed – so long as it was away from people so he didn't hurt anyone – until he found himself staring at the sobbing form of a hastily clad Alice Kingsleigh.

If he had a mirror, he would have noticed his eyes fade back to green.

"Alice?" he asked quietly, and she looked up sharply, surprised.

"T-Tarrant!" she sniffed. "I…"

"What's wrong?" he asked, sitting on the grass next to her.

She shrugged, bringing a hand up to wipe at her face. He drew a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to her. She looked at it in shock for a moment before letting out a sad laugh and taking it.

"No one's offered me a handkerchief since my father died," she explained, using it to wipe her eyes then blow her nose.

"Don't you only work with men?" he asked, unsure of English chivalry.

"Yes, well," she paused and blew again. "I don't make a habit of crying in front of people very often."

"You're secret's safe with me," he assured her.

"Thanks," she said, pocketing the soiled linen.

"Are you okay?" he asked after a moment. "Did anyone hurt you?"

That would be a wonderful way to work out his anger issues, Tarrant thought, because if anyone laid a finger on Alice he'd skewer them thirty different ways before breakfast.

"No, no, not at all," she assured him. "I just… I…I wake up sad sometimes," she finished lamely.

That wasn't just sad, he wanted to tell her, that was hysterical. But he knew the feeling far too well.

"I wake up mad sometimes," he confided.

She looked up at him and smiled. "Then you understand."

He looked at her strangely. "Of course I understand."

"No one else has ever understood me," she said quietly, refusing to meet his eyes.

He was quiet for a long moment. Alice looked back out on the horizon, and she and Tarrant sat there silently, unmoving for a while.

Then he found her hand and squeezed it tightly.

"No one's ever understood me either," he replied.

Her smile light up the dark morning.

"Come with me to London," she said suddenly.

"I am," he reminded her. "I'm your escort, remember?"

"No, but stay," she said, unsure as to how propriety would deal with her inviting some rustic hatter to winter with her.

"Stay?" he echoed, unsure what she meant.

"I mean…" suddenly her thoughts caught up to her, and she blushed. How wanton she sounded, inviting a man she just met to come live with her!

"Stay with you? In London?" he repeated, trying to keep his excitement from showing on his face.

"It's stupid, forget it. You have a life here; you can't just pick up and follow any silly girl who comes crashing in," she reasoned.

He agreed. "It sounds perfectly mad."

"Perfectly?" she dared to hope.

"Perfectly," he repeated, and a small smile graced her sad face. "You must help me pack, of course."

"Of course," she nodded, and they fell back into silence, appreciating the stillness of the black morning.

He never took his hand away from hers.

* * *

She wasn't sure what was worse: the actual business part of the tea or of the "helpful" warnings that her new friend "Hatter Hightopp" was quite insane.

"Really, my dear," said a kindly old gentlemen who she kept having to remind herself meant well. "He's not the best escort home you could have. Allow me to offer my son and his wife to accompany you."

But she kept politely refusing, a smile glued to her face even though she felt like swearing at them all. The business part had been conducted quickly and agreeably, and Alice only felt like it dragged on so because there was no arguments to spice up the meeting. Tarrant had cut out early, whispering in her ear a need to start packing, but after the post-tea discussions with some of the snootier business officials, she suddenly understood his need to escape. As much as they appreciated his work, these people obviously felt Tarrant to be a danger to the town.

She had never heard a more ridiculous thing in her life, and dearly wished to tell these people just that. Instead she merely ran off as soon as she could.

When she arrived at Tarrant's house, she opened the door without knocking and immediately began to berate him.

"A little warning would have been nice, you know!" she stormed in, straight to the bedroom where he was packing. "You could have told me what those people were like."

A smirk briefly graced his face before being erased into a look of pure innocence. "My dear Alice, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

"You know exactly what I'm talking about," she said, trying to be angry but the look on his face making her dissolve into giggles.

"I'm sure I do not," he said, letting out a small chuckle himself.

"Oh, you just wait until we get to London," she huffed, secure in her revenge. "I'll leave you alone with Lady Ascot."

"Your partner's wife?" he asked conversationally, filling a bag with various items of clothing.

"Ever wonder why he spends so much time abroad? She's such a - " and then she said something in Chinese that Tarrant thought sounded a lot like a nasty swear, but he couldn't be sure.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked, hoping for a translation. Instead she changed the subject entirely.

"Let me help," she said. "I'd like to be out of here by tomorrow morning. There's really nothing to be done; I just wanted to delay my return to London as long as possible."

"Pass me that pile over there," he suggested gesturing to a pile of clothes on top of which was his kilt.

"Why don't you wear this more often?" Alice asked, crossing the room to pick it up and then bringing it back to where his bag was on the bed.

"It's only for formal occasions," he explained, putting the pile away. "The day you met me Walker and I had just come from his cousin's wedding."

"Oh. But you're bringing it with you?"

He shrugged. "You never know what formal occasions I'll be forced to attend with you."

"We'll cut out early for all of them, I promise," she laughed, knowing that his statement was very true.

He tied his bag up, obviously finished, and brought it to rest by the front door. "Is there anything else you have to do?" he asked. She shook her head.

"No. I never even bother unpacking when we go places, and I finished all the official paperwork last night and put it away."

"Splendid!" Tarrant announced, clapping his hands together. "Then perhaps you'll agree that a celebration is in order?"

* * *

They did not get drunk. This was a very important point, Alice thought later as she drifted off to sleep on Tarrant's bed. They were not having a drunken one-night stand, nor was she rushing into a relationship. They had merely decided, under a very small influence – so small it barely counted, really – that it would be easier for them to meet the carriage that would take them to the train together.

The fact that the carriage was meeting them at the inn where Alice was staying at never crossed their minds. Nor did taking off their clothes, apparently, and Alice and Tarrant very quickly fell asleep on top of the covers, fully clothed, with their fingertips barely brushing. In fact, it was all very chaste.

Those brushing fingertips, however, changed both of their dreams entirely.

"We're here!" Tarrant cried, running into the dungeons holding Alice's hand, very nearly dragging him behind her. "I told you I'd find her, McTwisp! Everything's going to be okay now!"

"Tarrant," Mirana gave a sigh of relief, but was prevented from meeting them at the cell bars because of her chains. "Is it really you?"

"In the flesh," he said proudly. "I've retrieved our champion."

Alice curtseyed in front of the not-so-white, covered in filth, queen. "Your majesty."

"They've taken McTwisp and Mallymkun. Did you see them on your way in? Chess has been searching the castle, but he has to be careful," Mirana replied.

"No," Tarrant and Alice answered simultaneously, frowning as they did.

"How did you get in, anyway? Oh, Alice, I'm so happy you're here."

Tarrant and Alice looked at each other in confusion. "How did we get in?" Alice asked.

"Oh, no," Mirana moaned. "Don't tell me you're dreaming again? And I'm the fool who still believes…"

"No, your majesty!" Alice cried. "We will save you! I promise!"

Tarrant swore loudly in Outlandish. "There must be something we can do! How can I remember?"

"I can't help you," the queen said despondently. "I've failed my sister, I've failed my people, and now I've failed my hatter and my champion."

"It's not your fault!" Alice exclaimed, tears pricking her eyes at the queen's miserable state. "If I could only remember."

She tried not to cry loudly, but the tears streamed down her face anyway, and the water in her eyes blurred her image of Tarrant and Mirana, and as her friends blurred they began to fade until it was darkness and she woke hysterically sobbing in Tarrant Hightopp's bed.

She didn't mean to wake him, but she before she could even think of muffling her wails his arms were around her, comforting, whispering soothing things in a language she didn't recognize.

And for once, he didn't wake in madness. His thoughts were clear, unclouded by an all-consuming anger or depression - his first thought, of course, being to make his Alice happy again.

The second being simply, _Underland._

"Alice, Alice, my dear," he said, switching back to English as soon as he noticed himself beginning to fade. Now that he had remembered, he only had a few minutes before the memory took him back home. He somehow needed to make her remember, or his whole trip to Overland would be for nothing.

Her cries slowly stopped, save for a sniffle every once in awhile, and he took his arms out from around her to cup her chin, forcing her to look at him.

"Alice, you must remember. Underland, Alice, remember? Remember me? The Hatter? What about the March Hare? The White Rabbit? The blue caterpillar? The White Queen? The Red Queen? Alice, please, you must remember!"

She sniffed, and wiped her eyes. "Tarrant, are you mad?" she asked softly, even though it all felt so achingly familiar, she couldn't help but remember the warnings from the tea party.

He growled angrily. "Of course I'm mad, you foolish girl!" he roared. "We're all mad! But you must remember! The Red Queen has returned! She's taken our friends prisoner! Underland is in grave danger! We need our champion!"

He was fading; he knew he was fading, he felt it in his bones. But he hadn't yet seen any dawn of comprehension in her eyes.

"Alice, please!" he cried. "You slew the Jabberwocky! You had pishalver and upelkuchen, you drank my tea, you befriended the Bandersnatch!"

"What language are you speaking?" she asked timidly, and if he hadn't sworn to live his life protecting the girl, he would have slapped her.

"Dammit, Absolem, help me!" he yelled into the night, and for some reason the blue butterfly that followed Alice around everywhere came into her thoughts. A blue caterpillar…?

"You're frightening me," she told him flatly, and he took her face in his hands and with the last bit of grounding to Overland he had, pressed his lips to hers.

The first thing that she thought of was maybe staying alone overnight in the house of a man whom she just met was rather stupid of her. But the second thing she thought was that she was head over heels in love with that very same man.

She didn't have much experience kissing – in fact, she had no experience at all – but she very much enjoyed what he was doing. He seemed like such a gentle person that she was surprised to find his kiss demanding, urgent, frantic even. She parted her lips slightly to allow him to… well, for what purposes she wasn't sure, but it did seem like the right thing to do at the time.

She was extremely disappointed, therefore, when he pulled away a second later.

"Alice, please," he begged, and she was shocked to see tears in his eyes. She was even more shocked to see his body disappearing into a swirling fog.

"Tarrant!" she shrieked, grabbing his hands as they left her face in an effort to keep him grounded.

"Underland, Alice!" he repeated as he slowly disappeared. "Underland," he said again, when all that was left of him was his eyes. And then he was gone, and all that was left was a voice that cried, "Wonderland, Alice!"

Wonderland?

She screamed.


	5. In Between

A/N: If you couldn't tell, this takes place in Tarrant's perspective, explaining the events leading up to the current situation, also known as a flashback. This also marks the halfway point of the fic.

* * *

It had all happened so quickly.

They had, of course, been all lured into a false sense of security after the Frabjous day. The corpse of the Jabberwocky laid decomposing on the battlefield, a warning to all who would usurp the White Queen's power. Iracebeth and Illosovic were in exile, and in Marmoreal, there was joy again.

Too much joy, maybe, looking back on it. Tarrant was hatting again, Thackery was cooking again, Mally was fighting with the knights again, Nivens was sending messages only in Underland again, and Chess had no need to stay out of politics because there was no politics.

There may never have been a happier time in Underlandian history. With the darkness of the Red Queen's reign so recently behind them, no one took anything for granted. In fact, the only shadow on those days was the lack of Aliceness.

While they all missed her, Tarrant took her loss particularly hard. He kept expecting her to come back anyday, and would constantly look out the windows, or ask McTwisp of what he had seen throughout the country. McTwisp, of course, could merely refer the love-sick hatter to Absolem.

With the coming of the Frabjous day, there was no need to guard the Oraculum anymore. So Mirana had given Absolem the task of following the Alice in Overland. A champion, she had said, would always need to be protected. Which Tarrant thought was rather silly because really, champions should do the protecting, and if someone tried to hurt the Alice then a blue butterfly wasn't going to be much protection. But Absolem brought them word, and Tarrant spent his free time almost unconsciously designing hats and dresses for Alice's latest adventures.

"China," the hatter would mutter to himself. "What a strange kind of name. Absolem says that in that country they do incredible things like…" and based on the butterfly's descriptions, would outfit his Alice for every occasion.

The Alice, that is. Not his.

But even though he missed her, Absolem said that she was happy, and he would do anything for her happiness. So he resigned himself to loneliness.

That was, until That Day.

"It's gone!" McTwisp came crying into court one day. He was panting for breath, obviously ready to collapse at any moment, but desperate to get his message to the queen.

"What's gone?" Mirana asked, standing up and visibly alarmed.

"The Jabberwocky!" the rabbit shouted. "The body of the Jabberwock has disappeared!"

All the court went into such an uproar that even the queen had trouble controlling them. Finally, she shouted – and really, that should have been the first sign, because Mirana never shouts – "We must consult the Oraculum!"

And there it was. The unneeded, forgotten Oraculum has predicted everything that Underland has refused to believe could happen again. The return of the Red Reign. The revival of the Jabberwocky. The end of their happiness.

Mirana quickly called the troops together, but it was too late. Iracabeth had been too smart this time to show her hand before she was completely ready. No sooner had they realized the Jabberwocky was gone then Marmoreal was attacked.

It was only because Tarrant had been so close to the queen for so many years that he could see the horror and despair on her face that she could do nothing for her subjects. The White Queen was many things, but a warrior she was not.

"Hide the sword and the armor, Tarrant," she told him as she folded up the Oraculum and handed it to him. "I must lead my people."

He could have gotten her away. Tarrant Hightopp was a warrior, if Mirana of Marmoreal was not. He could have saved her. But Mirana would not let her people suffer without her again, and went outside to sacrifice herself to her sister.

Tarrant was nothing if not obedient. He stored the armor and the Vorpal sword in a hidden compartment under the rug in the floor of his workshop as soon as he could, and as he watched from his hiding spots in the castle, the Red Queen's servants seemed to be looking for just that.

Mirana also had an uncanny ability to know things.

Eventually they gave up, all of the captured court swearing to the Knave that the Champion had taken those things with her to Overland and there would be no recovering it. They were all led away from Marmoreal, then, and marched to Salazen Grum. It was only as they were leading each and every member of the court away that Tarrant had realized by doing the queen's bidding, he had escaped again. Every single one of his friends was captured by the most sick and demented ruler Underland had ever seen, completely at her mercy, and what was he doing? Hiding in alcoves in an abandoned castle? He was no warrior, he was a coward! He should have marched right down and face the Jabberwocky himself, Vorpal sword and all! What kind of man was he?

He was alone in the world again. It was just like Horunvendush Day, he realized. Then the Madness took him.

When he woke, he was lying facedown on the balcony, Oraculum crumpled in his hand. Despairing at the return of the dark times, he opened it for guidance. There before him was the return of Alice! They were saved, he rejoiced. If the Alice would return, she would fix everything. Underland would be right again. When was she coming? He read on, determined to put a date to their salvation.

Instead, he put a date to his death.

There he was, lying on the ground, dead as a doorknob. The Jabberwocky was also dead in the background, and Mirana was wearing her crown in the background as well, but he, Tarrant Hightopp, would not live to see it.

Alice, he noted in a daze, would. That was her crying over him, wasn't it? It didn't even look like he would ever see her again. There was barely anytime between her return and his death, and no time in which he saw them together. Until she was crying over his body, of course.

It was nice that she would cry over him. Not that his – the- Alice should ever be sad, but if someone was going to miss him, he was glad it would be her. He was quite fond of her. Mally even sometimes teased him about being in love with her. Which, of course, he wasn't, because a hatter isn't good enough for a champion, anyway, but still.

He sat there for awhile, staring at the scene of his death for who knows how long when Chess found him.

"So you are alive," the Cheshire Cat purred happily. "Mirana said you would be."

"Mirana's wrong," he said softly before turning his full attention to the cat. "Where is she?"

"In chains, at the moment. In the dungeons of Salazen Grum. Along with the rest of your friends," the cat said, almost as if he was asking the hatter a question.

"Leave it," Tarrant growled, disliking the insinuations of his cowardice.

"In any case, you and I and Absolem are the only ones left."

"Left of what?" he asked, suddenly concerned. "She couldn't have killed them all already, could she have?"

"No, no. Everyone is still alive. I've just checked up on them. I came earlier to speak with you, but you know how I hate being around you during your spells."

"Quite," Tarrant said dryly.

"Left of the old rebellion, according to the Queen. I of course insisted that I don't get involved with politics, but she begged me to take you a message," Chess purred.

"Spit it out," Tarrant exclaimed, jumping up suddenly. "Or has the cat got your tongue?"

Chess ignored the last bit, and instead said, "You must fetch the Alice."

Tarrant laughed. "I've been trying to fetch her for years. Humans can't go to Overland, remember? We can keep our voice, but not our memory."

"But animals can't keep their voice," Chess argued.

"But they at least know why they're in Overland, and remember where they came from and how to get back. Humans have no idea. That's why Mirana sends McTwisp and Absolem," Tarrant replied, slightly confused.

"McTwisp has only ever been able to lead Alice here when she was at a certain place by the rabbit hole. We know from Absolem that she's not likely to be anywhere near there anytime soon, and so us animals are useless. But Mirana said that there is another way to return," Chess hinted, and Tarrant looked shocked.

"Is she mad? For Alice to remember…You know what Overlandians are like! Not only does she have to remember, she has to believe in it, too! Overlandians are sane, Chess! They can't conceive of a place like Underland!"

"But it's our only hope. They're looking for you, you know. The Red Queen and Knave. They won't rest until they find you, general."

"So let them find me!" Tarrant scoffed. "They can't hurt me!"

Then he remembered Alice crying over his dead body in the Oraculum. He would die for Underland any day, of course. But he did so hate to see her cry.

Chess merely raised an eyebrow. "Well, if you're so intent on seeing Underland lay in waste for another ten years…"

"Wait!" Tarrant called after him as the cat began to evaporate.

"Yes?" Chess asked, popping only his head back onto the balcony.

"What…What must I do?"

"Take this," he replied, the rest of his body reappearing, this time with a vial of Jabberwocky blood in his paw.

"And if I forget?" the hatter asked, taking the vial from him.

"You must do everything in your power not to," Chess advised. "But if you do, we will do everything we can to help you remember. The trick will be to find Alice before you remember, so you can remind her, and then you two can remember at the same time and return together. Otherwise your trip will be for nothing."

"And when I return?" he inquired, uncorking the vial.

"I'll be here to pass along Mirana's instructions. It doesn't look as if they're going to execute her, just hold her as hostage for the good behavior of Underland."

"When I return with the Alice," Tarrant confirmed, drinking the blood quickly. "We will rescue her and everyone else imprisoned in Salazen Grum. Then we will kill the Red Queen and the Knave once and for all."

"I do so hate politics," Chess complained.

"We're counting on you, Chessur," Tarrant reminded him.

"And yourself, Tarrant Hightopp," the cat countered.

"Take the Oraculum somewhere safe," the hatter said as he began to fade.

The last thing he saw was the grin of an evaporating cat.

Then he woke up in the middle of the Scottish highlands, with absolutely no memory at all.


	6. Coming Back

A/N: Plot moving along nicely now, isn't it?

* * *

"_You called it Wonderland, then."_

A mad tea party. A blue caterpillar. A raving lunatic queen.

Scenes from her dreams.

But could they be real?

She screamed because she knew they were, knew it in the depth of her soul that these nightmares that had been haunting her were real. Not even a memory this time.

Real.

She kept screaming, terrified, knowing that she had to do something to save her friends, wondering where the Hatter had disappeared to, and overwhelmed by the flood of memories. She tried to stand up, and stumbled, falling off the bed. Her vision swirled; she couldn't stand straight.

"Tarrant," she choked from the floor.

A beautiful queen clothed all in white. A devoted and loyal bloodhound. A journey miles long on the back of a fantastic creature…a Bandersnatch?

The Jabberwocky. The feel of the weight of the Vorpal sword in her hand. The heavy armor, weighing her down as surely as the burden of Champion.

Upelkuchen. Pishalver. Growing and shrinking and growing and shrinking and shrinking even more. Flying on the top of a magnificent hat.

She tried to crawl across the room, but wasn't even sure where she was trying to go. She had to find the Hatter, had to follow him…

But why couldn't she see her hands in front of her? Why couldn't she feel the ground beneath her? Was she fainting? She had never fainted in her life, and was quite proud of that fact, and the last thing she needed when she was trying to find and help her friends was a fainting spell.

But suddenly she was gone. Not fainting anymore, but falling. Falling through the air, falling out of the sky. Was she going through the rabbit hole? But that was impossible, she was nowhere near Ascot's estate, and besides, she was falling through an open area, not a tunnel filled with pianos and mattresses.

The clouds grew further and further away, and she immediately became aware of the danger. She twisted and turned in the air to see the ground – a chessboard? – come closer and closer. She was falling onto the very battlefield she had left from six years ago. What would be the least painful position to fall in? Alice wondered whether she would break her spine if she landed on her back. After all, she was falling very fast straight out of the sky, and the ground was so close now; she couldn't land on her feet if she tried, and she'd break her legs that way anyway, and –

She hit the ground, and the world went black.

* * *

When she blearily opened her eyes hours later, the sun had set, and it took her a minute to realize she had woken.

"You certainly slept long enough, you stupid girl! Now get up; you have things to be doing."

"Absolem?" she croaked out, voice hoarse from screaming. She quickly regretted speaking. Her head was throbbing. Her entire body ached, but her head in particular felt like it was about to split in two.

"How it could possibly take you six years to remember I can't possibly fathom. But Mirana was right; sending the Hatter did help. Now get up. We have to go."

Alice moaned, closing her eyes and bringing her hands up to cradle her head. "I can't," she protested.

"Don't be stupid. You must. You have to go to Marmoreal and retrieve the armor and the Vorpal sword, and then slay the Jabberwocky," Absolem said, rolling his eyes. "Really, you think you would have a handle on this by now."

"I already slayed the Jabberwocky!" she shrieked angrily, but muffled, face buried in the ground, quite unwilling to get up.

"Yes, well, Mirana failed to slay her sister, and with her powers of Dominion Over Living Things, the Red Queen brought the monster back to life."

"What?" Alice asked, forcing herself to sit up slowly.

"Idiot girl. You heard me. The Jabberwocky must be slain again."

"Where's Tarrant?" Alice asked, ignoring the unpleasant task that lay before her.

"Oh, he was captured several hours ago."

"What?" Alice shrieked, standing up instantly, pain in her head momentarily forgotten.

"Lovely, she's awake," the seductive voice of the evaporating cat said, suddenly appearing before her.

"How was he captured?" Alice cried.

Chess frowned. "You told her about Tarrant?" he asked Absolem.

"Where is he?" Alice insisted.

"After he remembered, he was taken to the same place he was in Underland when he drank the Jabberwocky blood, the same way you were taken here. He had drank it at Marmoreal, being that the White Queen had stored several vials. Unfortunately, the Red Queen's guards were waiting for him there. He was marched to Salazen Grum, but I haven't been able to locate him inside the castle. They know I've been communicating with the prisoners in the dungeons, and are keeping him somewhere separate," Chess sighed.

"Then we must go rescue him," Alice decided, and began to head in the direction of Crims.

"First you must retrieve the sword and the armor from Marmoreal," Absolem said, looking disgusted at her idiocy. "You cannot slay the Jabberwocky without it, and you cannot rescue anyone without slaying it."

She looked incredibly frustrated. "So Tarrant is captured by the Red Queen, who magically returned from exile and magically revived the Jabberwocky and magically captured Mirana, and I have to waste two days by walking to an abandoned castle to pick up tools?"

"We'll explain everything on the way," Chess assured her. Alice sighed a long-suffering sigh, but turned around and began to walk in the opposite direction, towards Marmoreal.

* * *

The sound of Chess's voice kept her from being frightened during the seemingly endless nighttime walk across half of Underland. Absolem had gone off to report to Mirana, while Chess patiently explained everything that had happened since she left, and how it had gotten so particularly bad this time around. While she was worried sick over Tarrant, he also told her that Iracebeth had the rest of her friends for weeks now, and while Mally had gone missing for awhile, no one was dead yet. Two days probably wouldn't make too much of a difference.

So when they arrived at the castle just as the sun was rising, Alice felt slightly better than when she had just left the battlefield.

"Now where exactly is the sword and the armor?" she asked as they walked through the gates.

Chess visibly blanched.

"Don't tell me you don't know?" Alice cried, looking up at the huge building before her.

"Mirana told Tarrant to hide it," he explained. "I didn't think to ask…"

Alice sighed. "We better start looking, then. You start from the top, and I'll start from the bottom."

They spent hours scouring the castle. Every room was thoroughly searched; torn apart, in fact. Even the halls and storage rooms were ravaged in the mad hunt for the sword and armor. While Alice was hunting through the kitchen, she made sure to pocket a good amount of both pishalver and upelkuchen. After all, one never knows when some might come in handy. But still, they didn't find anything.

Finally, when the sun was setting and they had searched every room and Alice was ready to collapse, Chess suggested she sleep for a bit.

"I'll try to find him over in Salzen Grum again. Don't get your hopes up, but maybe they've moved him and he can tell us where it is."

She hated to waste anymore time when her friends were so desperately in need of help, but her head had really never stopped throbbing, and at this point she had technically been awake for more than twenty-four hours. So she snuck into the Hatter's old work room, and made a bed out of old fabrics. Then, despite her horrible headache, she was so exhausted that she quickly drifted off into sleep.

"Alice!" Tarrant cried.

"Tarrant!" she replied, running up to him. "What have they done to you?"

"Don't worry about me," he said, dismissing his numerous injuries. "Did you find Chess and Absolem? Oh, please tell me that you're not dreaming and you're really here."

"No, I'm not dreaming – I mean, I am, but I'm not. I'm in Underland, Hatter. You fulfilled your mission. I'm in Marmoreal now."

"You must come quickly. They're going to execute Mirana any day now."

"No!" she cried, horrified at the very idea.

"Now that they have me, they think they've captured the last of the Resistance. Alice, you must slay the Jabberwocky as soon as you can," Tarrant begged her from his chains.

"Why is it always me?" she sighed, the burden of responsibility weighing her down. Tarrant managed a small grin.

"You are Underland's Champion," he explained. "Just as Mirana will always be the rightful Queen, and I will always be the Hatter, you always be the Champion. It's your destiny, my dear."

"I wish you were here," she confided, kissing him lightly on the cheek.

"I do, too. I'm of no use trapped here. I'd much rather be with you, leading the Resistance."

"There's not much of a Resistance to lead," she confided in him sadly.

"Don't give up," he whispered, squeezing her hand gently. "I believe in you."

She looked at him lovingly, but felt unable to express the surge of…something… she felt rising in her chest at the sight of him.

"Hatter," she tried to explain, but couldn't.

"Why are you sleeping in Marmoreal?" he asked, suddenly realizing how behind schedule she was. "Shouldn't you be halfway here by now?"

She frowned, forgetting for a moment her mission. Then she remembered. "Oh! Where did you put the sword and the armor? We've been looking all day! And Chess can't find you; Tarrant, are you okay? Are you dreaming? Where are you?"

"They're in my work room," Tarrant said, frowning. "I'm in Salazen Grum, and no I'm not dreaming. But Chess didn't know where the sword was?"

"No, he said he didn't think to ask you."

He swore in Outlandish, but Alice could tell he was angrier at himself than at the grinning cat. "It's underneath the floor under a hidden panel. Are you too tired? Can you wake up now? We're running out of time."

"I think I can wake up now," she frowned, wondering how to wake oneself up. She closed her eyes and concentrated hard on being awake, and slowly heard Tarrant's voice fading.

"I will see you soon. I believe in you. Underland believes in you, Alice. Don't lose hope."

She woke without crying, and with remembrance, for the first time in years.

Her head still ached, but she was conscious enough to feel along the floor for the loose board. She fingers felt the edge of one right underneath her makeshift bed, and she pried it loose to find a hoard of gleaming metal underneath. If she had the energy, she would have shouted for joy. Instead she saved her strength to haul the load out from underneath the floor. Once it was all up, she replaced the floorboard and changed into the armor, sheathing the sword at her waist. Dressed and prepared for a battle that was likely two days away, she sighed heavily, desperate for more sleep, but unwilling to jeopardize the lives of her friends. So she left the castle and began the long walk towards to Crims in the middle of the night, frightened out of her mind, but comforted by the reassurances of her meeting with the Hatter in her dreams.

Chess showed up after a few hours, chastising her for not resting more and for leaving without him. She shrugged uncharacteristically. "Sorry, Chessur. But we've got a kingdom to save, and it doesn't look like we have much time in which to do it. I always seem to be running a little late, don't I?"

"The Oraculum doesn't foretell the slaying of the Jabberwocky until the day after tomorrow," Ches protested.

"But we have to get there first, don't we?" Alice asked, and she never once slowed her pace.


	7. The Path

A/N: If anyone has any questions, be sure to ask them soon, since the next chapter is the last before the epilogue and I'm going to try to clear everything up then.

* * *

They reached Salazen Grum around midday, at which point Alice was quite ready to collapse.

"This armor is killing me," she complained to Chess.

"Do you even have a plan?" he asked, ignoring her complaints.

"Actually, yes. Do you think you could lead me to the dungeons from the outside?" she asked.

"You can't possibly hope to infiltrate the castle clunking around like that," Chess laughed.

"No," she agreed, ducking behind a bush. She quickly took off the armor and sword and hid them in the bushes. She then pulled an old handkerchief out of her dress, along with the vials of pishsalver and upelkuchen.

"Turn around," she demanded of the curious cat. He laughed, seeing what she meant to do, and disappeared for a moment. She slipped out of her dress and tipped half of one of the vials down her throat.

As she shrunk, she clutched her handkerchief tightly until she was all of three inches tall. Then she wrapped it around her, tying knots in all the appropriate places until it resembled a rather terribly-tailored white dress.

"I told Mirana and the others you were on your way," Chess said, reappearing suddenly.

"Good," Alice said, leaving her dress, armor, sword, and upelkuchen in the bushes. She kept the rest of the pishalver in one hand, and used the other to grab Chess's tail and haul herself up.

"Take me as close to the dungeons as you can," she told him, and other than looking mildly affronted at being used as a pack animal, he complied. They floated slowly close to the castle, carefully keeping out of sight of the guards. Chess carried her over the moat by the very same crack in the wall she had used to enter the castle years ago.

"Go through," he said, letting her down. "I'll meet you on the other side."

She slipped through the crack, and sure enough, Chess was waiting for her on the other side.

"This is when it gets dangerous," he whispered. "Luckily, we have lots of allies inside the castle. We should be able to avoid the queen and the knave; they very rarely stray outside their tower."

Alice nodded, and they floated low to the ground through the gates and inside. Chess usually appeared straight into the dungeons, but because he had spent so much time looking for Tarrant and Mallymkun, he had a basic idea of the layout of the castle.

Soon they were able to find the door that leads downstairs to the dungeons, but had to hide behind a curtain and wait until the room cleared out before they could open it.

"Go, go!" Alice whispered urgently when the last guard marched out, and Chess floated to right underneath the handle. Alice jumped off of him and grabbed it, hanging off the edge dangerously. But her slight weight was enough to bring the handle down, and thankfully, it wasn't locked. The quiet _click_ it made when the door swung open made the partners in crime look around nervously, but no one had heard them. Alice jumped down to the Cheshire Cat's back, and the two snuck down the stairs quietly.

The stairs were endless, and Alice was very glad that they were floating down instead of walking. When they finally made it down to the hall of cells, it was almost pitch-black, despite being so bright outside.

"Your majesty?" Alice whispered.

"Alice!" Mirana cried gratefully. "You're here at last!"

"I'm going to help you escape, your majesty," Alice said, and Chessur left her at the foot of the cell. Three-inch Alice slipped through the bars, pishalver in hand, and began to climb up Mirana's tattered white gown. When she reached her shoulder, she uncorked the vial and held it out.

"Drink this," she said, and pressed it to the queen's lips.

Mirana drank gratefully, not only because it was the first thing she'd had to drink in days. But she quickly shrank, and when she was about a foot high, Alice jumped off her shoulder. Then they were both three inches tall, and could walk right out. But Mirana had trouble walking. She stumbled, and leaned heavily on Alice.

"Chess!" Alice called for help, and the cat shook his head.

"I won't be able to get through the bars. Get over here, and then I can carry her out," he said. They struggled over to the front of the cell, and Alice gently laid the queen down on Chess's back.

"Where are the others?" she asked.

"Over here!"

"Down this way!"

"Don't forget about me!"

Was the entire White Court chained in the dungeons? She desperately hoped she had enough pishalver, and slowly began making her way down the hall. After every three people or so, Chess would sneak back out of the castle, drop them by the bush with her armor and upelkuchen, and then come back in to bring the others out.

Most of them weren't as bad off as Mirana, although some had clearly been tortured and were actually much worse. So she had help freeing the rest of the prisoners, and they began to tell her a bit about the Red Queen's new reign.

"She has the smallest court you'd ever imagine."

"She trusts no one."

"She relies entirely upon her magic."

"No one is executed, just hidden away here."

"The guards are all under her spell."

"The Knave has actually fallen in love with her, for real! Not even faking it this time!"

"No one knows what happened."

"The Jabberwocky is here, not even hidden on the Battlefield!"

Eventually Alice gleaned enough information about the Red Queen's new reign to wonder about the terrible things that happened to her in the Outlands. But Iracebeth's state of mental health wasn't really her concern, and once they had evacuated every prisoner, Alice was left with a choice.

Mally and Tarrant were still missing, and by now it was sundown. The escapees had made a make-shift camp behind the tree-line after taking some of the upelkuchen she had left there, so she really didn't have to worry about them. There were some healers among them, and Chess told her that they assured him everyone would be perfectly fit for battle in the morning.

The intelligent thing to do would be to rest up, and find her two friends post-Jabberwocky slaying. But she couldn't leave them, despite Chess' protestations.

"I'm quite done being a pack animal, thank you very much," he said when she told him they needed to find the others. "I've searched all over. What makes you think we'll find them now?"

Alice frowned, and crossed her arms. "Because I refuse to let them sit here in captivity while we're free outside. If you're not going to help me, then I'll just walk around by myself!"

"Oh, no you don't!" Chess exclaimed, picking her up by biting the edge of her dress with his teeth.

"Chess!" Alice shrieked. "Put me down! Put me down this instant! We're going to find Tarrant and Mally; I don't care what you say - "

"I'm right here, Alice!" shouted a squeaky voice from the corner.

"Mallymkun?" both Alice and Chess gasped in surprised, Chess promptly dropping Alice to the floor.

"Ow," she said indignantly, but was too distracted by the sudden arrival of Mally to care. "How did you get away?"

"They took me out of the dungeons to make sure my tail didn't get infected," Mally said angrily. "They cut it off to torture me, but didn't want me to die of infection. How caring."

Alice was privately grateful that was the worst they had done, but didn't say so to her friend.

"They thought I was too sick to escape, but as soon as I could walk, I slipped away. I'm too small to find, you see, but I've been looking for the Hatter for days. I can't find him anywhere in the castle!"

"We better get out of here now," Chess said. "We'll find Tarrant after the Jabberwocky is slain."

"I'm not leaving him!" Alice cried.

"There's nothing you can do," Mally said sadly. "I can stay and keep looking, but you're our Champion. You need to be ready for tomorrow."

She knew they were right. She felt the exhaustion in her very bones. She would be in absolutely no state to fight a monster if she didn't get any sleep tonight. But somehow she felt that she wouldn't be able to do it if she didn't have the Hatter at her back. It was strange because she wasn't really worried at all this time around; she was completely confident in her slaying ability. Not having Tarrant there, though, somehow just felt…wrong.

So it was with great reluctance that she and Mally hopped onto Chess's back, snuck out of the castle, and made their way to the makeshift camp. Alice was in no mood to make a rallying speech, and luckily, as Champion – not General or Queen – she didn't have to. So she took a bit of upelkuchen, changed back into her old dress, and fell asleep underneath a tree to the sounds of a company preparing for battle.

* * *

"Alice?"

"Tarrant! I'm so glad you're here; I was so nervous I'd have to face the Jabberwocky without you!"

"You're dreaming again."

"Oh."

She sighed, and felt tears welling up in her eyes, despairing of the battle without the hatter. But she knew that crying meant she would wake up, so she blinked them back and focused on the man in front of her.

"Don't cry," he said softly, reaching up to brush her cheek. She closed her eyes and tilted her head towards his hand, but was shocked at the noise of a chain by her ear.

"Hatter?" she asked, and opened her eyes to look at him fully.

If possible, he was worse off than Mirana and Mallymkun. Her poor, poor Hatter. Two black eyes, bruises all over his body, dried blood from dozens of cuts staining his shredded clothing and what looked like a broken leg.

Chains. Chains everywhere. One on each arm and each leg, attached to each other, attached to the wall. He was their most guarded prisoner; no wonder Chess couldn't find him.

She was furious. How dare they hurt her Hatter this way? She'd take the Vorpal Sword to the Red Queen and Knave's necks next! She'd kill them both, she'd kill them all, she'd hurt them the way they dared to harm her Hatter, she'd –

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not," Alice argued, sitting down next him and cupping his face in her hands. "You're hurt. I can't believe I let you get captured, Tarrant, I'm so sorry. I'll get you free of this place, I swear. I'm slaying the Jabberwocky as soon as I wake up, and then I'm going to search every corner of this castle until I find you."

She traced a cut on his cheek lightly with her thumb as she said this, and then placed two feather-light kisses on each of his bruised eyes.

"Don't you worry about me," he insisted, reaching up to grasp her hands, but being foiled by the chains that bound him. Alice quickly brought her hands down to meet his, and squeezed them tightly. "I'll find my own way out. You really should just focus on the Jabberwocky."

"I don't know how I can face him without you there with me," she confided, and Tarrant felt his heart ache. What if this was the last time he ever saw her?

"Thackery used to fight. He-he can help you, and as long as you have the Vorpal Sword…"

"It's not the same," she whispered, fighting the urge to cling to him and sob over the general unfairness of the entire world.

"Alice," he sighed, looking at her sadly. "I thought you had found your muchness."

"I did find it!" she said indignantly.

"Then you must have lost it. You didn't give it away to Chess, did you? He has a habit of stealing Things That Should Not Be Stolen."

"I have all my muchness!" Alice argued.

"Prove it," Tarrant said, hoping to chase away her fears of fighting the Jabberwocky, but instead earning himself a very surprising kiss.

Alice surprised herself with such a display of muchness, for she knew she was muchy, but not that muchy. Yet somehow her lips were pressed against the Hatter's firmly, and before she even realized what was happening, his tongue had slipped between those lips and found her own, desperate for anything, for everything, for something Alice couldn't quite understand. And she found herself desperate for the same thing, so while one hand remained ensconced in Tarrant's, the other slowly wrapped around his neck, fingers tangling in his hair.

He held Alice's hand so tightly she thought he'd crush it, and then he moved to hold her closer with his other arm. But the heavy chains prevented him, and he broke the kiss to swear loudly.

Alice couldn't even focus on what he was upset about, since she was so lightheaded from their contact. She moved back slowly, and started to take her hand away from around Tarrant. He caught it, though, and moved it firmly back to where it was before.

"I…I need to be close to you," he said quietly, as if confessing a mortal sin.

She smiled, and felt even giddier, if that was possible. "Of course," she replied, and scooted closer to settle against his chest, letting go of the hand that she still had intertwined with his to join her arm draped around his neck. He used the opportunity of two free hands to wrap his arms around her waist.

After several minutes of this relaxing position, Tarrant chuckled softly.

"What's so funny?" Alice asked, immediately becoming self-conscious.

"I was wrong," he admitted, kissing her forehead tenderly. "You do have your muchness after all."

But just then the door banged open and Stayne barged in angrily. Alice and Tarrant jumped, and Tarrant valiantly tried to place Alice behind him, but Stayne didn't seem to see her at all.

"Get up," he growled at the madman on the floor. "We killed all your friends. You're next."

"That's not true, Hatter; he's lying, everyone escaped. We're outside. We're marching on the castle in the morning," Alice told him, clutching at his shirt desperately as Stayne took the whip from his belt off and forced the Hatter to his feet.

"Wake-up," he whispered to Alice. "It's time."

"Time for what, you lunatic?" Stayne laughed, and began to vent his anger at losing all of his prisoners on the one he had left.

"Tarrant!" Alice shrieked as the whip cracked down on his already shredded back. She tried to beat Stayne off, but she wasn't solid to him. None of her punches affected the furious giant, and she seemed to only be real to the man begging her to leave.

"Wake-up, Alice!" he cried, and Stayne laughed again, thinking him to be a madman.

"No, no, no! Stop! Please, don't hurt him!" Alice cried, and her pleas became more desperate with every crack of the whip.

"Alice," Tarrant begged, horrified for her to witness this. "Get out of here."

"I can't…can't leave you," she wailed, and was saddened to find herself crying. Shrieks of protest became sobs, and soon that terrible vision faded from view.

She woke, crying, but ready for battle.


	8. So Much to Lose

A/N: This is the last chapter, although a short epilogue is forthcoming.

* * *

The day of the battle dawned bright and happy, as if the fate of Underland wasn't hanging on the strength of a silly little Overland girl. Alice felt slightly betrayed, putting on her armor, gathering her sword and watching as the troops lined up. Mirana, however, thought she was being ridiculous.

"Why, this is a happy occasion, Alice dear. We are free from the prison of Salazen Grum, and you are about to slay the Jabberwocky and liberate Underland once and for all!"

Alice privately disagreed, positive Mirana would chicken out at the last minute and be unable to kill her sister. But she said nothing, and signaled for the march on the castle to begin. It was now or never.

Neither she nor Mirana were riding this time, but Alice found that she missed the presence of the Hatter far more than the comfort of the Bandersnatch underneath her. She spared a curious wondering as to where said Bandersnatch was, but refused to dwell long on that particular unpleasant train of thought.

The march to the castle was short, especially considering Iracebeth, Stayne, and the Red Army were waiting for them in front. While she had never thought they'd be laying siege to the castle, Alice didn't quite think they'd be calmly waiting for the rebels, either.

"I see your champion has returned," the Red Queen said conversationally, all traces of her lisp now gone. "Better late than never, I suppose."

"I should have done away with you when I had the chance, sister," Mirana said sadly. "I thought you would have realized the error of your ways in the Outlands."

"The Outlands!" Iracebeth shrieked, turning red and taking a step towards her sister. "How dare you presume to tell me what I would find there! You have no idea - "

But the Knave placed a hand on her shoulder silently, comfortingly, reassuringly, and the red melted from her face. She stepped back and took a deep breath before saying calmly,

"I will slaughter you all."

"You will not," Mirana replied confidently. "Alice?" she added, signaling for her champion.

Alice gripped the sword with two hands, then stepped up into the empty space between the two monarchs."Where's your champion, sister?" she asked, echoing Iracebeth's own words from the last battle.

Iracebeth sighed, as if resigned, then raised an arm. A loud horn then blew at her signal, and suddenly the top of the highest tower flew off. The Jabberwocky was not being kept in his egg-like home underground, but in the very castle. Many of those who had been imprisoned paled at the thought of being in the same building with that creature for months.

What was even more horrific, however, was that already demonic-looking monster was deformed. Green slime was oozing from every possible pore, bits of rotting flesh falling off every limb…It looked as if it was about to fall apart at any moment.

How had Iracebeth learned this magic? And more importantly, was it possible to slay something that was already dead?

Unlike last time, the beast didn't address her or the sword, and instead immediately began to attack. She was taken slightly off guard, and jumped back to dodge a particularly viscous bite.

She dodged a blast of purple fire, and began to doubt her ability to slay for the first time since her return.

"Tarrant, where are you?" she whispered, ducking and rolling underneath the Jabberwock. It let out a mighty roar, turning around and nearly crushing her underneath its feet. She grabbed on to its tail as it turned, avoiding another blast but piercing her hand on a sharp spike.

She let out a swear, but held on, even as it swung back and forth furiously, trying to shake her off. She wrenched her pierced hand off of the spike, and slowly began to climb up the angry Jabberwocky. She nearly slipped many times, the slime making it quite impossible to hold her grip. But finally she reached the top of his head, and with a shake, he tossed her off so she flew through the air, sword in hand.

It looked almost exactly like the last battle, and Alice briefly thought that this was all too easy. She raised her sword to chop of his head –

And he moved aside.

How did it learn, if it was dead? How did it remember? She railed against fate as she flew to the ground, falling just like she had after she Remembered. She hit the ground with a thud and let out a muffled sob, punching the ground angrily. She almost didn't want to get up again, to just let it kill her. How could she really defeat this creature? She had Tarrant's help and a stroke of amazing luck last time! There was no way she could do it again.

She rolled over anyway, laying on the ground on her back, looking up at the most frightening sight she'd ever seen. The Jabberwocky raised a claw to swipe at her, and she closed her eyes and raised the sword in a half-hearted gesture to defend herself, sure that Death was imminent.

Then, the roar turned into a angry shriek of pain, claw flying up to his eye to clutch at the arrow sticking out. Alice's eye's flew open in time to realize that the surprised gasp was attached to the White Queen, whose magic had sent the conjured arrow flying towards the beast that had endangered her champion.

Everyone, even Iracebeth, turned to stare at Mirana in horror and confusion. Even the queen herself looked terrified at her own daring.

"My vows…" she whispered.

"It's not a living creature!" Alice cried, rising to her feet and calling out to rally the troops. "It is Death!"

The Jabberwocky resented the reminder of its zombie-like status, and made to attack Alice again. She was ready for him this time, though, and made a strike of her own, slicing open the side of his face.

With Mirana's attack, the two armies began to battle each other, no longer complacently watching Alice and the Jabberwocky fight the war for them. But Alice couldn't focus on this other than as a general note, and began to fight in earnest.

A slash to the left, dodge, slash to the right, duck, parry, stab to the right, dodge, stab again, slash back to the left, duck and roll…

She heard Tarrant's voice in her head, shouting in Outlandish. If she closed her eyes it could almost be the first battle again… But no, she had to focus, and the reality was that he wasn't here right now. Stab to the left, and there! The Jabberwocky had made a slash with his right claw, and she grabbed onto it with her good hand. He swung his arm upwards, but she refused to let go until he brought his arm down again. Then the momentum brought her flying through the air underneath his chin.

She let the sword guide her, sticking it out in front of her so it pierced the soft tissue underneath its neck, and through the jaw, completely impaling the creature's head on the sword.

The sword remained lodged there, and Alice held on, swinging from the sword as the force animating the dead beast's body left it, and the head fell off.

She crashed to the ground, victorious.

She lay there for a moment, panting with exertion in the space between the head and the body, covered in green slime and blood. As soon as she got her breath back, however, she noted that the Red Army didn't give up like it did last time. Despite the Jabberwocky's death, the battle continued, as if her efforts were for nothing. She took a deep breath, and stood up shakily to assess the situation.

The battle hadn't stopped, but the rebels were quite obviously winning. Somehow the Red Army seemed to have lost their skill and enthusiasm for a fight. They were simply being slaughtered. While sheer numbers had overpowered the rebels at first, once they began fighting back, it was a massacre.

Alice turned to look for Iracebeth, to see how she was accepting her eventual defeat. But the Queen was nowhere in sight, and when Alice turned around again, the last card was killed.

All that remained on the battlefield were the rebels, and the Knave of Hearts. He was quickly surrounded, and even though he tried to keep fighting, subdued just as easily. The rebels looked to Mirana for the signal – for now there could be no talk of letting the Knave and the Queen get away, lest this happen again – and she closed her eyes, but nodded.

The White Knight raised his sword, and the Knave closed his eye in preparation, but just before the blade struck him, a voice from the wall of the castle screamed,

"Stop!"

The rebels froze, and looked up to the castle wall to see Iracebeth, holding a chained prisoner with a knife to his throat. Alice's heart stopped.

"Hatter…" Mirana breathed nervously.

"Let Stayne go, or your General will die!" the bloody big head shrieked, pressing the knife hard against his throat. Tarrant looked beyond caring, exhausted, defeated, barely able to struggle against the psychotic queen.

"Let the Hatter go, or your Knave will die!" the White Knight replied, holding Stayne at swordpoint. Mirana signaled for him not to do anything rash, and addressed her sister.

"You are defeated, sister. Your Jabberwocky is dead. Every one of your knights is dead. Your consort has been captured. Give up."

A flash of white caught Alice's eye, and she watched as a little mouse scurried up the wall, unseen by any but her, apparently.

"Why should I give up?" Iracebeth screamed. "So you can kill us? Let us go, or this will be last you see of your precious Hatter!" She pulled him close to the edge of the wall, so that the slightest movement of hers wound send him falling to his death, if the knife didn't kill him first.

"No…" Alice whispered, horrified, praying that Mally could do something, anything, for Alice was quite frozen in fear, all muchness frightfully fled.

But Mallymkun saved the day, and scuttled up the rest of the wall, up Iracebeth's arm, to stick her in the eye with her hatpin.

The Red Queen roared in pain, flailing about. She flung Mally off of her, and the little dormouse went sailing through the air, off the wall. Thankfully, Mirana caught her before she hit the ground, but the Hatter was another story. He teetered dangerously on the edge, and Iracebeth just managed to stab in the chest before collapsing to the ground herself.

The stab threw him off balance, and the chained man fell.

"Tarrant!" Alice screamed, running towards the falling man, all of her worst fears coming true in that instant. He hit the ground with a sickening crack, and she reached his side a second later.

"No, no, no…" she cried, cradling his head in her lap. "It'll be okay, it'll be okay…"

"Alice…" he choked out, blood flowing freely from his deep wound and bones twisted at unnatural angles.

"Sh, darling, it'll be okay," she cried, tears streaming from her eyes as freely as his blood. Mirana reached them momentarily, glass vial in hand.

"Alice, my champion, you must be strong for him," the White Queen said, examining the fatal stab. "He doesn't have much time left."

"No! Your majesty, please! There must be something you can do," she sobbed, clinging to the dying man.

"It's alright, Alice…" Tarrant whispered. "Underland is safe again. You're home at last."

"It's not home without you," she whispered back, squeezing his hand tightly.

"Alice, if you are to save him, you must act quickly," Mirana said, handing her the vial full of purple liquid.

"J-Jabberwocky blood? But I can't go back; I've just returned here! And Tarrant, he…"

"You must listen, and listen well. The trip between Underland and Overland is magical. Animals, for example, lose their voice in Underland, while humans lose their memory. The trip between is also restorative, healing all wounds, even ones as large as this. Because time runs differently between the worlds, however, and because it is incredibly difficult for humans to return, very few chose this route of healing. Tarrant, however, has no other choice."

"We must return to Overland, in order to save him?" she confirmed, taking the vial shakily.

"Yes. But you will remember nothing," Mirana said sadly.

"Will you… will one of you," she corrected, turning to look at her non-human friends. "Come and find us? Bring us back as soon as you can?"

"We will," Nivens replied. "But you must stay in that city of yours, London, for it to be possible."

"I'll do anything," she swore. "Just lead us back home."

"Alice, you must go now," Mirana interrupted, seeing Tarrant's heavy breathing. "Drink half, and give him half, you will return to the place where you were when you Remembered."

Alice quickly uncorked the vial and pressed it to his lips, tipping it slowly down his throat. Then she kissed him, drinking her half from his lips, determined not to be separated again.

"I love you," she whispered, wondering how much they would Remember as he began to fade.

"We will come for you," she heard Mirana's voice reassure her, Underland beginning to disappear before her. "Don't give up."

* * *

Alice woke up entwined in Tarrant Hightopp's arms, in his bed, in his house, in some remote village on the coast of Scotland.

"Tarrant?" she yawned, sleepily, sitting up.

"Mm?" he asked, eyes fluttering open.

"I feel like we're forgetting something," she replied, frowning.

"The carriage!" he exclaimed, jumping up. He winced immediately after that, not sure where the sudden soreness had come from.

"Be careful," Alice said, rising slowly and touching his arm lightly, also feeling an ache in her left hand.

"Alice…I…" he looked at her, confused. "What happened last night?"

"I'm not sure," she replied honestly. "I think you must have been having a nightmare, because you woke up and starting yelling about some nonsensical things, and…"

_And you kissed me,_ she wanted to say, but faltered.

"And I kissed you," he remembered, looking at her guiltily. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize!" she protested vehemently, unhappy at the prospect of him regretting it.

"Don't apologize? For violating a lady?" he asked, looking at her curiously.

She laughed. "You didn't violate me. And I'm not a lady," she told him seriously.

"Oh, well, that changes everything," he joked, but there was a serious light in his eyes when he moved closer to her, slowly, so that she had the chance to pull away if she wanted.

She did the exact opposite, however, and closed the distance between them. They both closed their eyes, and rested contentedly in the chaste kiss that promised so much more. When they broke apart, Tarrant looked at her with such emotion in his eyes that she had to kiss him once more, and gave him another small peck before walking out of the bedroom.

"Come on, Mister Hightopp. We have a train to catch."

"I didn't know you were so eager to get back to London," he said, raising his eyebrows as he picked up their bags.

"I wasn't before. Now I have this strange feeling about it. Like the sooner I get there, the better it'll be for both of us," she explained, opening the front door and walking out into the early morning.

He closed the door behind them and locked it, then offered Alice his free arm for the walk to the inn.

"In that case, let us make all haste," he said, smile still on his face.

And looking at him, Alice felt like the Something She Had To Remember could wait a little awhile, after all.


	9. Epilogue  Another Day

A/N: I apologize to anyone who was expecting something different. I somehow must've misled everyone in the last chapter to believe that I'd be recounting their adventures in London. The story, however, is finished now. You know, they lived happily ever after and all that nonsense. Thanks everyone for reading!

* * *

It wasn't a large garden party, and for that she was grateful. It was still a little larger than she would have liked, but how could one request that Lady Ascot, Hamish, and his wife Hattie not attend their own garden party? And how could Margaret not have brought Lowell when it was specifically requested that the whole family attend?

For that's what it was, really. A family party. Helen, Margaret, Lowell, Alice, Tarrant, and Charles had been invited over to Ascot Manor for a tea party. There was no particular reason, merely a wish for the Ascots and Kingsleighs to see each other again. Since Alice had given up her position in the company several years ago, she rarely got to see Lord Ascot anymore, except for the few times he was in London for the Season.

So the party was going well. No surprise engagements – not that there was anyone unmarried except little Charles, and he was only four – no discovered affairs, and thankfully, no quadrilles.

Alice sighed, and rested her head on Tarrant's shoulder. However well it was going, she was still frightfully bored. Not just with the party, either, but with her entire life. After she and Tarrant married – and what a scandal that was! – he had opened up his own shop. They had tried to balance her travelling with his financial need to stay put, but after a single trip back to China, they both conceded that being separated for six months out of the year was a fate far too miserable for either of them.

Then, of course, she realized she was pregnant with Charles, and travelling was out of the question. She hadn't left London since then, and though she was happy with her family and felt a strange sort of dread in the pit of her stomach whenever she thought of leaving the city, she was incredibly bored.

Tarrant understood, bless his soul, and did his best to keep her entertained. They were mad together, telling outrageous stories of faraway lands, of silly fashions and strange customs. Charlie had, fortunately or unfortunately depending on who one asked, inherited their madness. The beautiful little boy looked just like his mother, with pale blonde hair and blue eyes. He was rather soft-spoken and quiet, and fit in with society completely until he opened his mouth and began telling stories. As a result, he was closer with his parents than any children his age, and spent a great deal of time by himself.

Today was one of those days where his parents were occupied with stuffy old grownup stuff, so he had to go play by himself. He had been over the Ascots several times before, and was always fascinated by their maze. So that was where he went while his parents talked to Hattie and Hamish and Lowell and Margaret about babies and why he didn't have any cousins yet. He explored as he usually did, taking the twists and turns without thinking, when suddenly he saw a little white rabbit in the path in front of him.

He stopped, shocked. He'd never seen a rabbit in a waistcoat with a pocket watch before. But he remembered that staring was rude and quickly dipped his head in a little bow.

"How do you do?" Charlie asked politely. His parents always told him that while humans might not be able to understand animals, animals might be able to understand humans, so he should always be polite to them. The rabbit pointed at his watch impatiently, then turned around and began to run out of the maze.

"Oh, please, sir! Could you wait a minute? I have to go get my parents," he said, knowing that seeing a rabbit like this one would definitely put a smile on his mother's face, and she always seemed so sad. He didn't really expect an answer, though, so was shocked when the rabbit nodded, and stood still. He stared for another second, then turned around and flew out of the maze, back to the table.

"Mother mother mother!" he cried breathlessly, crashing into her.

Lady Ascot and Hattie looked absolutely shocked, but Alice paid them no mind and scooped her son up onto her lap.

"What's wrong, dearest?" she asked, concerned. It wasn't like Charlie to act this way.

"There's a white rabbit in a waistcoat with a pocket watch you simply must come see! He said he'd wait for you in the maze," her son exclaimed.

Alice raised her eyes to meet Tarrant's, and he smiled at her. They both stood up at the same time and left the table.

"Well, then, we simply must go see him. It's not polite to keep him waiting now, is it?" Alice asked, taking Tarrant's hand on her left and Charlie's on her right.

"Alice, dear, you mustn't encourage these fantasies - " Margaret began, but the Hightopp family ignored their friends' protests and went into the maze.

"Now, where did you say he was, Charlie?" Tarrant asked as they went further in.

"Right there!" he exclaimed, seeing a flash of white in front of him. "Why is he running away? Oh, no, hurry!"

The child began to run after the rabbit, and his parents after him, through the maze, out of the maze, into the woods, up the hill, until finally Charlie stopped in front of an old tree with a hole in the base.

"Charles," Alice began, panting, and feeling doubtful for the first time. "Are you absolutely sure - "

"He went down here!" Charlie exclaimed, and knelt down to look into the rabbit hole. But the ground gave out around him, and he fell in with a cry of shock.

"Charlie!" his father shouted, taking a step to grab him, but then he fell down too, and Alice was left alone in front of the rabbit hole, staring in after her family.

"Tarrant?" she called. "Charlie? Are you okay?"

She tiptoed around the base of the entrance, trying not to fall in herself, but to make sure they weren't hurt. Just then she felt a tug on her dress, and, shrieking, she lost her balance and slipped.

And she fell down the rabbit hole once again.

* * *

_The End_


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